Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen
Have I Seen it Before: Yes. I’m sure I have. It is one of my mother’s favorite movies, if not the absolute favorite. I have the strongest memory of a VHS copy sitting on a shelf as a kid, along with all of the other grown up movies. I’m sure I had to watch it at some point.
Did I Like It: As much as I love Singin’ in the Rain (1952), the “Broadway Melody” feels as awkwardly forced into the movie as it would have in The Dancing Cavalier.
It’s a reality of the genre, also on display here* that things eventually have to devolve into a musical number. Fortunately, here, as all concerned are also just putting on a show, the numbers feel less tacked on**.
But this should really be less about Singin’ in the Rain and more about the film in question.
I’ve often said that each year I have—at best—48 hours of Christmas cheer per year. Never mind that the larger world would be more than content to exhaust it sometime in early November. There’s a possibility I may have to strictly budget that cheer over the coming weeks, because this movie might be demanding just a bit more out of me before everything is said and done.
Or maybe I’ll have to find some deeper levels of cheer. The movies just might be worth it.
*That genre being the “1950s film where two rapscallion show folk fellas get into some shenanigans and at least the leading man (read: less funny of the two) meets and wins over the girl of his dreams.” See Singin’ and Some Like It Hot (1959) for examples.
**Maybe if we watched the sequence play out in the middle of an exhibition The Dancing Cavalier and not the pitching of those added scenes.